The use of the term “temperature control” here in relation to a vehicle body means to bring a vehicle body to a specified temperature which it is not at initially. This can be an increase in temperature or a decrease in temperature. The term “temperature controlled air” refers to air which is at the temperature required to control the temperature of the vehicle body.
In the automotive industry, a frequent application involving the temperature control, namely heating, of vehicle bodies is the procedure of drying the coating of a vehicle body, be this a paint or an adhesive or the like. The following detailed description of the invention refers by way of example to a dryer of this type.
The term “dry” is used here to refer to all procedures in which the coating, in particular a paint, of the vehicle body can be hardened, either through the expulsion of solvents or through the cross-linking of the coating substance.
Known devices of the type mentioned at the outset which are constructed as dryers conventionally have a pressure chamber on both sides of the temperature control tunnel referred to in this case as a drying tunnel. The nozzles accommodated in the walls separating the pressure chambers from the drying tunnel are at different spacings from the regions of the vehicle body on which they are intended to act, which spacings are often not adapted to the drying requirement. However, vehicle bodies have different masses in different regions; in particular, the bottom-most region, the door sill region or the undercarriage, has a high mass. Accordingly, the heat capacities in the different vehicle body regions are also different and the times required to bring these regions to the temperature required for drying likewise differ. The residence time of the vehicle body to be dried in the dryer therefore has to be adapted to the longest time required to dry the region of the vehicle body which is the most awkward and has the greatest mass. Consequently, not only are the cycle times of the dryer increased, but those regions of the vehicle body which dry more quickly can become overheated. This can be particularly disadvantageous where different, even temperature-sensitive, materials are incorporated in the vehicle body and/or bonded joints have been used.
An object of the present invention is to construct a device of the type mentioned at the outset so that reduced cycle times can be achieved and unnecessary overheating or overcooling in particular regions of the vehicle body can be substantially prevented.